


Hawkeye

by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)



Series: дезинформация [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Is a Good Bro, Flashbacks, Gen, Gun Nostalgia, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Healing Power of Cocoa, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaqen_hgar/pseuds/Finely%20Honed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There was just this perfect marriage of weight, and balance,” he tried to explain, his voice reverent. Clint was nodding enthusiastically, gesturing with his beer for Bucky to continue, as if he actually needed the encouragement. “Sometimes, out of nowhere, I can <em>feel</em> it. Slung over my shoulder, or in my hands. That familiar weight returns, and it’s like I can breathe easy again.” He snapped his fingers. “Then, poof! It’s gone.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hawkeye

“There was just this perfect marriage of weight, and balance,” he tried to explain, his voice reverent. Clint was nodding enthusiastically, gesturing with his beer for Bucky to continue, as if he actually needed the encouragement. “Sometimes, out of nowhere, I can _feel_ it. Slung over my shoulder, or in my hands. That familiar weight returns, and it’s like I can breathe easy again.” He snapped his fingers. “Then, poof! It’s gone.”

“Those M1941s are good guns,” Clint agreed with a nostalgic sigh. 

“Don’t get me wrong, my Springfield was a real peach, and there’s something particularly satisfying about a bolt-action,” Bucky paused to empty his beer, and Clint hummed his agreement, then made little clicking noises with his hand cupped over his mouth that sounded eerily like the gun in question. “Lighter, too, but…” he sighed wistfully, “I’d take my Johnson any day of the week.”

“Weird, ain’t it? The way some of them just stick with you?”

“Yeah.” Bucky rubbed his hands together, trying to push away the pervasive sense of emptiness, of aching _absence_. In an attempt to distract himself, he pulled the binoculars back up to his eyes and chuckled. “Look at these knuckleheads.” 

Clint, despite a total lack of serum or other fancy superpowers, quickly spotted the group of hipsters in the building across the way. Without the binoculars, they were just blurred shapes to Bucky; Clint wasn’t named Hawkeye for nothing, after all.

“Oh man, yes, a million points for Barnes.” He slapped Bucky on the back as he laughed. “You’re at a party, idiots! Every last one of ‘em hunched over their stupid phones. You’ll never get laid that way. Losers.”

“It’s the same thing, really,” Bucky felt the need to point out. “Tony has about three of the things on him at any given time, and if he can’t find one of them he starts freaking out, like a kid lost in a department store.”

“I’d rather get all phantom limb over something that can save my life,” Clint insisted. “Normal people don’t get it. You could replicate my baby down to her last precious molecule, but you put it in my hands and I’d just _know_ it wasn’t the real deal.”

“I know what you mean.” 

“Damn! Sorry ‘bout the phantom limb comment,” Clint blurted, smacking himself in the head. “Let Nat know I hit myself since she wasn’t here to do it.”

Bucky was confused, until he replayed the conversation in his head and realized why Clint was looking so sheepish. “Don’t worry about it. Shit, I miss that gun more than I miss the arm.”

“You’re making me want to go back in for my bow. Check on her, you know, make sure she’s all safe and sound.”

“You could ask JARVIS to look for you,” Bucky suggested, handing over his special Stark Phone, complete with his own personal, permanent connection to the A.I.

Bucky leaned on the railing, letting his eyes wander, feeling oddly relaxed, letting the sound of Clint talking to JARVIS fade into the background. The wind started picking up again, whipping his hair around his face, and suddenly he was somewhere else entirely, the landscape shifting in front of his eyes. He blinked and the nighttime view of New York disappeared, the rooftop replaced by a wide expanse of snow, and trees.

The air is crisp, and clean, and so cold it almost hurts to breathe. Everything feels tight, and sharp—the buckles of his harness, the leather of his uniform—because his ribs are bruised, possibly fractured. They had dropped him in the wrong LZ, and as an added bonus his parachute had failed.

The mistakes made were beyond his control, but allowing any injury to occur is unacceptable. This body is not his to damage; he is a weapon to be wielded, and nothing more. The ribs will be dealt with when his handlers deem it worthy of attention. For him, there is only the mission. 

The target serpentines, but he is an excellent shot, so his heartbeat remains steady as he takes aim, easily compensating for the movement. The recoil is uncomfortable because of his ribs, a little huff of discomfort escaping as he absorbs the shock. The words being screamed to him in supplication are as meaningless as the song of birds, relegated to background noise, nothing to concern himself with. There is only the mission.

The Winter Soldier’s stride remains consistent and purposeful, even as he steps over the body, cracked open by his bullets and emptying itself slowly into the snow. It makes pathetic, mewling noises, the fingers scrabbling against his ankle as he passes. Without sparing a second glance, he cracks his boot down hard, hears the whimper and crunch, and continues on, his gun already raised.

The wind picks up, whipping his hair in front of his face again, and he thinks to himself that shaving his head would make his work easier, isn’t sure why they haven’t just cut all this pointless hair away. Perhaps for the same reason that they fail to present him with any real challenges, as of late. These targets are beneath him.

It must be a test. He feels as if he has been _aware_ for some time. It was always impossible to tell, though, there was so little by which he could gauge the passage of time, unstuck as he was. 

The distracting internal grievances feel out of place, and he dislikes them. There should be only the mission, always. If he was meant to worry about his hair, or his ribs ( _or even the fact that he’s worrying about those things_ ) he would have been ordered to do so.

His forehead remains smooth and untroubled, his mouth an unwavering line as he pulls the trigger again, and again, and again, dispatching his last three targets in quick succession. The shots are clean, and efficient; one bullet each, no headshots, as per his instructions.

He leaves the woman where she fell, mouth tightening with discomfort ( _one of the ribs must surely be fractured_ ) as he bends over in order to take hold of one arm of each of the children, dragging them back the way he came. The smaller of the two has already died, but the older child gurgles for most of the journey, wet, pathetic noises that are barely audible over the sounds his primary target is making.

The man he’d stepped over, the one who was to suffer, he struggles in the red snow, watching as the Winter Soldier returns bearing gifts. Snot and tears and blood are caked in his beard, and he makes noises of pain unlike anything the Winter Soldier can recall hearing before.

When he drops the bodies beside the man, he nudges them with his boots so their faces can be seen. If anything, the screaming, the sobs, they grow louder, more choked with pain. Why should he scream _more_? It was obvious they were both dead now, far beyond the suffering the primary target was experiencing. It confuses him, but it isn’t part of the mission to question what transpires around him unless it is a threat. Still, it is difficult to keep his thoughts focused as he returns for the woman.

Again, the body is dropped, and the man despairs, while the Winter Soldier watches, his breath a white cloud in the cold air. Without the mask, it would be colder still. The blood is already freezing around him, the red looking almost pink in places where it has soaked into the snow, and without warning his heart begins to hammer wildly in his chest.

“I know this,” he hears himself say, eyes focused on the blood in the snow. 

There is an image in his mind, one that has never been there before, of a boy, and _he_ is with this boy. He is, in fact, a boy himself. It had been a special occasion, he could _feel_ that, even without having the details, or context to provide clarity. There is a small paper cone, filled with shaved ice, drizzled with something red. The red has the consistency of syrup, something he has seen the others use on their porridge, but has never been ordered to try himself. They pass the cone between them, and he can _taste_ it—surprisingly sweet—but he doesn’t have a _word_ to correspond with the taste in his mouth.

The man in the snow howls, has dragged himself over to the bodies of his family, is stroking their cold faces. The Winter Soldier does not think before acting, he kicks him over onto his back, grabs him by the front of his coat and shakes him, crouched over the man, the pain of his ribs distant and unimportant.

“Do you know what it is?” he demands, shaking again. The eyes staring up at him are wide, confused, devastated. They are also familiar, they remind the Winter Soldier of eyes he has seen before ( _your own, they’re your own_ ) and he shakes the man again, his blood hot with anger now. 

“A paper cone, with shaved ice. They put a red syrup on top.”

“What?” the man gasps, his hands clutching at the soldier’s. 

He looks deranged with pain and shock, and the Winter Soldier hates him, suddenly. Hating him is not part of the mission, but he does it anyway. He leans over, grabs a fistful of blood soaked snow and holds it up. “Like this, it looks like this!”

“I don’t… you… killed them, they’re gone, you… my _children_! You’re a _monster_!”  
  
The Winter Soldier shoves the handful of bloody ice into the man’s mouth, causing him to cough and sputter, and he is shouting now, “What does the red syrup taste like?”

“Cherries, red is cherries,” he is finally told, and so he lets the body fall back into the snow.

His head hurts more than his ribs as he pulls aside the mask, grabbing another handful of snow, and closing his eyes. In his mind, there is a boy who smiles at him like he is a hero, and he says to this boy, “Go on, pal, you finish it up, I know you want to.”

The boy’s hair is soft, and blond, and warmed with sunshine. He can feel the warmth when he affectionately runs his fingers through the strands before slinging an arm around the shining boy’s shoulders.

“Red is cherries?” he wonders aloud, sliding his mask back in place. 

His mouth is very cold now, and filled with the safe and familiar coppery taste of blood, obliterating the confusing memory of sweetness. Blood makes much more sense than _cherries_. Blood he understands; he isn’t sure what cherries _are_. 

The Winter Soldier knows that he has made a mistake, is almost glad of it. They’ll retire him again, because he’s crying _(Go on, pal…)_ and he doesn’t know _why_ , as the wind whips his hair into his face once more.

“Hey! Hey hey hey _hey_ ,” Clint shouted, and Bucky froze. “Yeah, there we go, thank fuck, you’re back, it’s cool, you’re okay.”

Bucky was shaking, could still taste blood in his mouth, could still feel the sharp pain in his chest of ribs that aren’t actually cracked when he takes a deep, shuddering breath. Clint looked surprisingly calm despite standing about two feet away with his hands up in front of him, like he’s dealing with a spooked horse.

“Can you to walk to me?” Clint asked, and it was only after he took a few shuffling steps forward and found himself in a tight embrace that Bucky realized they were still on the roof of the Tower. He must have been moving around during the flashback, because a glance over his shoulder showed him how dangerously close to the edge of the landing pad he’d been.

“Okay, good, this is really way better,” Clint said, sounding relieved as he began walking them back inside. 

Bucky allowed himself to be led, because there was nothing else to do, really. By the time they stepped back inside the Tower, he was sweating, and the warmth of Clint’s body against his own felt like being burned. He disentangled himself, stumbling towards the elevator, but his legs gave out on him before he could get there, and he landed hard on his hands and knees.

Clint was there in an instant to place a warm hand between his shoulder blades, and began rubbing small circles against his back. “I know, believe me, I know. It wasn’t you, though,” he said. 

Bucky could only watch as fat teardrops landed on the floor beneath him. He fought against the tears until his sobbing was almost inaudible. It brought to mind the wet, desperate noises the child had made as she drowned in her own blood, and so punching the floor seemed like the only logical course of action. The bright bolt of pain exploding across his knuckles helped, but Clint grabbed his arm before he could do it again.

“Bucky, none of it was you, it wasn’t, okay? You can’t… _fuck_.”

“I killed his _children_ ,” Bucky all but screamed, his voice breaking around the words. He forced himself upright, so he could see Clint’s face, try to make him understand. “His family, executed, right in front of him. _I_ did that.”

“Bullshit. That was _not_ you,” Clint insisted.“Them. It was _them_.” 

There was a good deal of pain mixed in with the conviction Bucky could see in Clint’s eyes, and he felt guilty for all the times he’d had petty thoughts about this man, back before he’d really gotten to know him. He hadn’t understood, not until later, having had to piece things together from Tony, and Natasha, and Steve, and finally Clint himself. If anyone in the Tower understood what it was to be _used_ , tainted, it was Clint. In some ways, it was worse for Hawkeye—he’d been trapped in his own mind, forced to watch, but unable to stop his body from following the commands of another.

At least Bucky had the chair, and the vast expanses of emptiness where memories should live, which in some ways was better. In other ways, it was worse. Clint already knew all there was to know. He might have nightmares, but didn’t they all? For better or worse, Bucky’s mind was like a frozen lake beginning to thaw. At any moment, without warning, he could drop through a thin patch and find himself plunged into the past, left to choke and sputter and ultimately succumb to whatever waited for him beneath the ice.

“I left him to bleed out surrounded by the bodies of his family,” Bucky explained, his jaw tight. He could still hear the man’s gut wrenching screams as the little bodies fell into the snow, one after the other, and wanted to vomit, wanted to scream himself in an attempt to obliterate the memory of the sound. “He called me a monster, and he was right. It was _nothing_ to me. I couldn’t even understand why he was upset.”

“Which proves my point. That _wasn’t you_ , Bucky.”

He wanted to hit him, to make him stop saying that, but he also wanted to hug Clint. He sounded so damned sure of himself that it was hard to hold onto the panic the flashback had left behind. The room and Clint’s face wavered around him, and he wiped hurriedly at the tears, hating them, hating himself. He had no right to shed them, he wasn’t the victim, he was…

“I know it sounds like bullshit, and that it hurts to hear me say it, but it’s still true. When I was where you are, Nat never stopped telling me the truth, but I’m thicker in the head, so she had to scream it, too.” Bucky tried to concentrate on slowing down his breathing, letting Clint’s voice roll over him. “Never stopped, even when she lost her voice. I figure I’m overdue on paying that forward, so I’m just gonna keep it up until you believe me.”

Clint stood up, and offered Bucky a hand. He had to leave it extended for a long time, but eventually Bucky accepted it, allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

“As hippy dippy as it sounds, I want you to say it for me,” Clint insisted, not letting go of Bucky’s hand.

Bucky licked his lips, then cleared his throat. Clint’s eyes seemed to see everything, seemed to look right through him, and Bucky had the strangest feeling that if he looked long enough, Hawkeye would even be able to see those small, lifeless bodies, see the long trails of red he’d painted over the pure white canvas of snow when dragging them back to their father.

“It’s,” and he had to swallow, because his voice was raw, and worthless. “It wasn’t me.”

It felt like a lie.

Clint shook his head, and placed his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. “I need it one more time,” he said solemnly, “and believe it this time, even if it’s only for a second.”

He could feel his nostrils flaring as he attempted to control his breathing, his face wet with tears, and he tried, for just a second, he really tried to believe what Clint was saying. When he closed his eyes, he could see the machine above him, could feel the straps holding him down in the chair, the weight of the bit in his mouth, and when he opened his eyes and looked at Clint, he said, “It wasn’t me,” and then, “I didn’t want to do it,” and he didn’t even recognize his own voice, “but I was _good_ at it, Clint, I was really fucking good, and I was _glad_ , I was glad I was good.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Clint insisted, giving his shoulders a little shake. He pulled Bucky into a rough hug, and Bucky could feel the reverberations of Clint’s voice when he continued speaking. “They hollowed you out, and left you with nothing else. Of course you were glad! That doesn’t change anything, man. Even if you took pride in your abilities, it still doesn’t change the fact that it _wasn’t you_. None of it.”

Bucky had no idea how long they stood there, but at some point they must have moved, because he found himself on the couch, having a hot cup of cocoa shoved into his metal hand, and a bag of frozen vegetables plopped onto the knuckles of the other one. When he looked up, Clint was frowning, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to get the bag of veggies placed just right.

“I had to talk JARVIS out of calling Tony,” he said when he noticed Bucky watching him. He carefully placed Bucky’s phone on the end table, within easy reach. “Figured it should be your call when that happened.”

“Thanks.” He took a sip of the cocoa, smiling despite himself over the sheer volume of miniature marshmallows Clint had managed to get into the mug. “I’ll call him when I finish this.”

Clint sighed loudly as he plopped down on the couch, and it took all of Bucky’s reflexes to keep from sloshing cocoa on himself. “You know he’s gonna jump in the suit and haul ass back here, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, liking the sound of that very much. 

“Steve’ll be back in an hour or so,” Clint added, sounding much less self assured than he had before. “You know, if you wanted him.” The “instead of me” was left unsaid.

Bucky shifted a bit so he could study Clint’s profile as the marksman turned on the TV and began flicking through channels. It was obvious Hawkeye was still concerned, that he was probably dealing with the churning up of all of his own demons, but there he sat, searching for the perfect, stupid bit of entertainment to help them distract themselves.

“Thanks, Clint. You’re a good friend.” Not surprisingly, Hawkeye’s ears turned pink, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, making a little noncommittal noise. “I’m glad it was you that was there with me.”

And because he was Hawkeye, he made a loud noise of frustration and said, “Drink your cocoa.” After flicking through another handful of channels he added, “and tell your boyfriend to fix my fucking Wii already.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry there is only a mention of Tony in this one—hoping to have written the Tony Comforts Bucky component of this before too long.


End file.
